


Fragmented Light

by mylittlecthulhu (marineko)



Category: Arashi (Band), Johnny's Entertainment
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-08 19:21:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17392184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marineko/pseuds/mylittlecthulhu
Summary: Once, Sho and Jun were childhood friends, then high school sweethearts. Then Sho decided that he wanted something else. Songfic, based on Zanzou by flumpool.This was originally posted on LJ in 2010 for nicefinalbeam's The Melody Lingers On challenge. This version is slightly different.





	Fragmented Light

**Author's Note:**

> 愛してる　苦しくて　泣きたくて　24時間  
> 今まだ消せない　君が消えないこの胸に  
> \- 残像 by flumpool

Jun stared at the imprints of his footsteps on the sand. The tide was strong, and the imprints gave in without a fight as the waves rolled over to erase them. It was still morning, and the sunlight was gentle on his skin as he walked on, listening to the crashing sounds the sea made. 

He could still see the imprints in his mind, not one set of footsteps, but two.

})i({

_“Jun, wait up!”_

_Jun laughed as he turned to see Sho running to catch up with him, but he waited. Even when Sho was all caught up, holding on to his arm and now trying to catch his breath, Jun waited._

_“Calm down,” he said, amused. “Enjoy the scenery. The weather is perfect, today. Isn’t it?”_

_Sho straightened up, and looked out into the sea, and smiled when he saw it glittering, reflecting the brightness of the sun. “It’s in the sea after all,” he murmured._

_“Hmm?” Jun asked. “What is?”_

_“Nothing. I just read a story once, about how there used to be a treasure unlike any other that mankind was supposed to protect. Some kind of trickster animal stole it –”_

_“_ Some _kind?” Jun interrupted. “Don’t you know?”_

_“There were different versions of the story, and it varies all the time, so I don’t know. A bird of some sort, I guess. It’s almost always a bird.” Sho was still staring out at the sea. “Anyway, no one could catch up to the bird, because it flew fast and very high up, but it eventually got tired of holding the treasure in its beak, or it tried to talk – this differed, too – and it fell down to earth, breaking into millions of pieces.” Sho was starting to sound a little vague, which was what happened when he got into one of his stories. “There are so many different ideas about what the treasure was, but now I think it must be light – even when distorted and fragmented, they could glitter like that… how could there be a greater treasure than that?”_

_Jun looked at Sho for a long time. “You’re taking this story a little too seriously, aren’t you?”_

_Smiling impishly, Sho said, “well, what do you think the treasure was?”_

_“I don’t know that story, any version of it.”_

_Putting a hand over Jun’s chest, Sho said, “just follow your heart – after all, your greatest treasure is always what your heart decides on.”_

_Jun gave Sho a look that Sho recognized too well, that meant Jun thought Sho was being too sentimental. He took Sho’s hand away, but kept it in his. The two of them looked out, admiring the dancing beams of sunlight on sea water. Just when Sho thought that Jun wasn’t going to answer, or had forgotten all about his question, Jun spoke._

_“It’s love.”_

_Sho was surprised that Jun was being sentimental, himself, instead of chiding Sho._

_“You can’t_ steal _love.”_

_“Yes, you can. And you can break it, too – into a million little pieces.” And then, indignantly, Jun said, “anyway, it’s up to me what I want the treasure to be, right? And I say it’s love.”_

_“Okay,” Sho replied, laughing a little, but giving in. “Come on, we need to get going. The others would be waiting for us.”_

_They walked, hand in hand, leaving imprints of their footsteps trailing behind them to be washed away by the incoming tide. Before reaching their destination, Sho pulled back a little, causing Jun to stop and look at him inquisitively._

_“I’ll try my best not to break your love,” Sho said earnestly, “if you promise not to break mine.”_

_Jun’s first thought was that it was a strange way to phrase things, but the seriousness of Sho’s expression stopped him. He looked at their entwined hands, and smiled. “I promise,” he said. “Anyway,” he continued, tugging Sho towards him, “if it’s up to the heart, then mine would always choose you.”_

})i({

Youthful, naïve declarations were supposed to make him laugh as he grew older, Jun thought. Instead they made him feel a deep sorrow within him, one that he was now sure would never leave him. Six years was too long to hold onto someone, he was often told, but it wasn’t something he could help. No matter what he tried, his heart still chose Sho.

He missed Sho the way only he could, the only way he knew how. Like each step, each breath he takes, was almost too hard to bear. Like everyday things suddenly became heroic tasks, and with each day he was worn down even more. The fact that he got through an entire day sometimes felt miraculous, but like in one the stories Sho liked to tell him, where a man had to do the same thing over and over without rest. Another day without Sho would come with the morning, and he would have to go through it all over again.

})i({

_“That’s life,” Nino said, pouring more god-knows-what into Jun’s cup. After the fifth refill, he’d given up on trying to find out what Nino kept in his flask. It was giving him a small reprieve, blurring the edges of his mind, and that was enough for him. Nino’s words, though, were sharp and cut right through the headiness the drink was giving him. “Everything is bound to fall apart sooner or later, anyway. You were together for what, three years? That’s practically a_ lifetime _for most kids our age. And we’ve all practically grown up together, which is why I think your relationship is a bit icky, if you ask me. It’s like being with your brother! Anyway, I digress. So, he’s thinking that it’s about time that he gets married, have a crack at ‘real life.’ He’s an idiot. Not only for leaving you, but also for thinking that marriage is the answer to anything. As for you, you’re only twenty-four. Enjoy your life to the fullest, and forget about him.”_

 _Jun wanted to say that Nino was wrong, that life wasn’t a series of beginnings doomed to end. Sometimes, he wanted to say, one just_ knew _. Sometimes, the mind made a decision that it would never go back on. But he knew that Nino was trying his best to cheer him up, and Aiba was agreeing with Nino a little too loudly – Jun thought that his ears would be ringing all night – and Ohno looked like he was already too drunk to remember where he was, so he downed his drink in a single gulp and held out his cup for Nino to refill._

_If there was a part of him that wondered who was there to comfort Sho, he pushed it aside, focusing on the friends before him._

})i({

The memory of Sho – the way he ducked his head and his hands would come up to his neck when he’s shy or embarrassed about something, the way he lit up when amused (usually by something Aiba said), the creasing of his forehead and the slight puckering of his lips when he was concentrating on something – faded over time. If it wasn’t for the pictures that he couldn’t bring himself to throw away, Jun wondered if he would even really remember how Sho looked like. But there were things he would never forget, like the slow, burning sensation he would get even when Sho was just looking at him, the way his pulse quickened, the he got overwhelmed with emotion sometimes that it was almost painful, except that Sho was always there, and nothing could touch him if Sho was around.

After the first year, he allowed himself – or rather, he forced himself to – move on. He still heared about Sho from time to time, because Nino refused to choose sides and kept in touch with both of them. He saw Aiba less than he used to, especially after that first year, when Sho had a daughter and Aiba was made godfather. Ohno, like Nino, didn’t really choose sides, but due to Ohno’s passiveness and Sho’s busy schedule, he was closer to Jun, who made the time to visit him during the weekends.

He still loved the sea, despite the memories it brought him, or perhaps because of it. Ohno’s house, the place where the five of them used to gather to during vacations, was now Jun’s favourite place to be. It was exactly what he needed, he thought – sparse and white with large windows, and almost always bathed in light.

})i({

_Jun wasn’t even the first to know._

_It would kill him, even years in the future, the fact that Sho hadn’t talked to him about it first. Instead, he would have to hear about it from Aiba, who had burst into his room in tears after coming back from a walk with Sho and Nino._

_“Sho-chan’s thinking of getting married.”_

_Just like that, the entire foundation of his life disappeared from under him. He wanted to laugh, because the idea was ridiculous. How could Sho even consider leaving him? They were the perfect couple – even Nino would grudgingly say so. Everyone was jealous of them. Of course, all of that wouldn’t matter, except for the fact that after three years, Jun still loved Sho with an intensity that he sometimes thought would burn him inside out. He never felt more alive than when he was with Sho, and he knew that Sho felt the same, because he knew Sho. Sho was clumsy and bossy and dense sometimes, but he was also considerate and warm and smart and responsible and always kept his promises and he loved Jun. It was one of the things Jun had never questioned._

_But the tears in Aiba’s eyes were real, and Aiba was pleading him to stop Sho from being stupid, and he still wouldn’t believe a single thing Aiba was saying, except that Sho was running into the room after Aiba and telling Aiba to stop talking, that Jun wasn’t supposed to know yet, and he_ knew _._

_Everything he thought he knew was wrong._

})i({

A poet once said that happiness is always decided by one’s own heart. Jun believed that, but sometimes he thought it was a cruel statement, because how could a heart decide that it was happy, when the thing most precious to it was lost?

The problem, he thought, was that different hearts wanted different things. His may had chosen Sho, and he may had decided that his happiness relied on Sho. Sho had decided that _his_ happiness was somewhere else, in his idea of what an ideal family entailed. Jun understood this, so when Sho asked, he stepped aside, and moved on.

Only once a year did he allow his feelings to overwhelm him, as he walked down the entire length of the beach, retracing footsteps from years ago.

“Papa!”

He paused, and turned to see a small boy sitting alone. He looked around; there were no other adults in his vicinity. Irritation and anger with the boy’s irresponsible parents came and went, immediately replaced by worry. He walked over and squatted in front of the boy. “Hi, I’m Jun,” he said. “Do you need help looking for your Papa?”

The boy hesitated, probably remembering that he wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers. After a while, he nodded. “I’m supposed to be here with Nana,” he said. Jun thought that the boy is remarkably articulate for such a small kid, and was even more impressed when the child continued, “but Papa was too slow to get us, and we got lost, then Nana looked for Papa but now she’s gone too.”

“Who’s Nana?” Jun asked, staring at the boy’s familiar features. He seemed the right age, Jun was thinking. _But it couldn’t be_.

The boy gave him a look, like he couldn’t believe Jun didn’t know. “Nana’s my sister, of course.”

“Of course,” Jun murmured, as he smiled at the boy. The boy smiled back. “Do you know where your Papa is? I’ll help you find him.”

The boy shook his head, to Jun’s dismay. “Nana said to wait here.”

“Okay, I guess I’ll wait with you, then.” Jun hoped that the kid’s parents would come soon. “What’s your name?”

“Papa said not to tell strangers,” the boy said, shaking his head and pouting. It reminded Jun of Sho, and made him laugh, causing the boy to glare at him a little.

“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me,” Jun told the boy, hoping that he’d give in, but instead his face crumpled in disappointment and he started to cry. Panicking, Jun gathered the boy in his arms and made shushing noises, but it only made the boy cry louder. 

“Shoji!” 

The first thing that came to Jun’s mind was that he was stuck in a dream of some sort and that was why Sho was rushing towards him and calling him by someone else’s name. Then it registered that of course the boy was Shoji, Sho’s three-year-old son. He let the boy go, and watched as Shoji ran to his father. He was still crying, and stumbled as he ran, falling before he reached Sho.

“I can’t believe Nana left you,” Sho was saying as he scooped Shoji up into his arms. “Sorry, I should have come earlier, but my talk went on longer than I thought it would.”

“That’s okay, Papa,” Shoji said in a muffled voice, clutching at his father’s shirt. “That strange man wait with me.”

Sho looked at Jun, who was staring at them. “Thanks,” he said to Jun, awkwardly. “Jun’s not a stranger,” he told Shoji. “That’s Papa’s friend.”

“Really?” Shoji lifted his head and looked at Jun with renewed interest. 

“Really.” Sho smiled at Jun, who didn’t smile back. He knew that Sho had children, but there was knowing, and there was _knowing_. Sho really had a family now. And Jun, he was still living with the afterimage of Sho in his heart.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, trying sound casual but his voice cracks a little.

Sho looked away. “To see Ohno, of course.”

“Why? You never do, before.”

“It’s not a personal visit. Although it is good to see him again. And you.”

Jun let the comment pass. He didn’t want to dwell on it, knowing that it might make him blow up in anger, or start crying, the way he was feeling at the moment. “But Ohno’s a _divorce_ lawyer… oh. _Oh_.”

There was a hint of bitterness in Sho’s smile. “Yes. Oh.” To Shoji, he said, “Nana is having ice cream at the stall over there, with Ohno-jichan. Do you want to go find them?”

“Okay.” As soon as Sho released him, Shoji ran towards the stall, as Sho and Jun watched on. When he could see Ohno bending over to pick Shoji up, Sho finally turned back to Jun.

“She doesn’t want kids. My wife, I mean. Never wanted them. After Shoji, she told me that she doesn’t want anything to do with them, or me, again. We’ve been separated since, but I think it’s about time we make it official.” 

“I’m sorry.” Jun was sincere when he said the words. He really was sorry; he knew how much Sho wanted it, the ideal nuclear family. 

“I’m not.” Sho sighed, and dragged his hand through his hair. Another gesture Jun remembered well. “I care for her, of course; she’s the mother of our children. But I’m glad that it’s finally going to be over.”

They talked for a while, the conversation stilted and careful, both of them skirting around the past, trying not to mention it while trying to catch up with what they’d done since.

})i({

Jun’s room in Ohno’s house didn’t have any furniture in it – just one large chest against one of the windows, in which he kept his change of clothes, and one rolled up futon. There was a mirror in the attached bathroom, but it was cracked, with thin lines running through it, like a spider’s web. Ohno wanted to replace it, but Jun always told him not to.

The mirror reminded him of a sprained wrist and bloody knuckles, and the day Aiba told him Sho was leaving. The light from the bathroom windows reflected from the mirror, and Jun thinks that there was a certain kind of beauty in the way that the reflected light seemed broken into pieces. When he looked into the mirror, he liked the way it reflected him in bits of fragmented light.

He heared the children outside, running and shouting in the yard, and smiled. He hadn’t wanted to see Sho, or Sho’s family, since their break-up, despite Sho’s insistence that he still wanted Jun in his life – as a friend. But he had to admit that he was glad to have met the children. Nana and Shoji reminded him of Sho when he was younger. They were just as precocious. Jun didn’t know if they knew the reason Sho was visiting Ohno, because they didn’t seem affected by the impending divorce. But then again, he supposed, Sho had told him that he’d been separated from his wife for the past three years.

He wondered why Nino or Ohno hadn’t told him. Maybe they were scared that he’d find hope in the news, that he’d think that Sho would come back to him. Maybe Sho kept it a secret from them as well – Jun probably would have done so, just to avoid Nino’s “I told you so.” 

It hardly mattered. He was moving on. Had been, for a long time. Next year, he didn’t even know if he’d still return to the same beach, if he would be in Japan. He was leaving for Europe in a month; his boss had been trying to get him to go for the past two years, and this time he decided that it was time to leave his memories for good.

He was glad to have met Sho one last time, he told himself. This was closure, seeing Sho with his children, happy. Sho’s heart had found its happiness, even if it wasn’t quite in the way he had imagined it.

Soon it would be Jun’s turn to find something new.

})i({

Sho had never wanted to lose Jun. It wasn’t in his plans, even though he knew that there was no way for him to get what he wanted and keep Jun at the same time. When it came to denial, though, he was an expert. Even when he went through with his marriage plans, even after Nana, a part of him still waited for Jun. It was selfish, he knew, and impossible. But he couldn’t help that his heart had made its choice all those years ago, and even as he told himself to make a different choice, it didn’t mean that he could stop wanting.

When his wife left – it really wasn’t as simple a matter as wanting or not wanting children, but it _was_ true that she hadn’t cared for theirs – he was surprised to find that he was more relieved than anything else. He had been feeling like a single parent for long enough a time, and the separation only made things less confusing for the kids. And then, of course, there was the thought of Jun.

Nino had been his constant source of news when it came to Jun. He learned that Jun quit his job at the photo shop to take on the internship he had given up on earlier, and he learned that Jun was good at what he did, and quickly became a full-timer at the studio he worked at. He asked about Jun’s love life, but Nino always sidetracked him, expertly changing the subject with a disapproving frown that reminded Sho _it really wasn’t any of his business anymore._

Nino always told him that Jun was happy, and had moved on. So Sho decided that he would not mess with Jun’s life any more than he had, and that he ought to leave things be. If the vestiges of his feelings for Jun never quite faded away from his heart, he would keep it to himself.

})i({

Jun pulled aside the curtains, always, so that he could see the night sky outside. He laid the futon to face the windows, and looking at the first stars he saw, thought of how they really were light-years away and were really kind of an afterimage, a lingering light of something that may or may not still be around.

Maybe the treasure was the stars, he thought.

He didn’t look to the door when it opened, and closed. He knew that the children had fallen asleep; he no longer heard their voices. And Ohno was usually holed up in his office late at night, so it must’ve been Sho.

Of course, he could probably tell that it was Sho from the way his pulse sent a shiver through him the moment Sho was near, but it wasn’t something he was going to admit.

“You’re leaving tomorrow,” he said.

“Yes.” Sho sat next to him. “It’s hard enough getting this much time off.”

Jun hums to himself as the two of them looked out and up at the stars. 

“Nino says you’re leaving for Europe.”

“In about three weeks, yes.”

“I wish you wouldn’t.”

“Yes, well, it doesn’t matter one way or another to you anyway.” Jun’s words came out sharper than he intended, and he immediately regretted it. He was angry at Sho for their past, but he didn’t want his last memory of Sho to be tainted by anger.

“I guess it doesn’t. But I’m selfish, and how am I going to keep track of you when I wouldn’t even be able to ask Nino about you?” Jun didn’t reply, and Sho let the silence linger for a moment before speaking again. “I feel like I’ve been dreaming all these years without you. Nothing seems real, you know? I’m happy, I’m working hard, I have all – most of all – I ever wanted, but in my mind there’s still just you, the lack of you.”

“Don’t tell me all of this _now_ ,” Jun said. “It’s too late.”

“I know. But you’re leaving, and I wanted you to know. I always thought that I’d be able to get you back one day, but I keep putting it off because I’m too scared to face you after all I’ve done, and now you’re leaving and I’m losing my chance.”

“Is that why – the divorce?”

“It’s part of it. I just realised that it’s about time that I make clean breaks, that I start moving forward again.”

Jun nodded. He didn’t know what to do with what Sho told him. He was leaving, and they had grown up, with grown-up responsibilities. Things were no longer so simple, that the mere fact that they both still loved each other would be enough. 

_But_ , a voice in his head seemed to say. But this was Sho, and he knew that no matter how many more years passed by, his heart would always choose Sho. And too many years had already passed them by/

“A year,” he finally said. “My contract in Europe lasts about a year.” He expected Sho to understand that he wasn’t going to stay, that this time he wasn’t going to give up on everything else for Sho. He had made too many sacrifices when they were together, which only made it worse when Sho had left. 

He had spoken expecting Sho to accept that they were too far apart, that it was easier to let him go. But after a long pause, Sho surprised him by taking his hand, entwining their fingers together, a gesture that was both familiar and distant.

})i({

_“We’re just going to different schools,” Sho said. “And it’s only one year. We’ll be together again after that. I’m still going to be your friend.”_

_“You won’t forget about me, even though you’re going to school with Aiba?” Jun wiped at his tears, knowing that Nino was going to tease him about being a cry baby again the next day. He knew the day was going to come, when Sho would move on to high school and he was stuck in junior high, but it didn’t make him any more prepared. “You’re not going to think you’re too old to hang out with me?”_

_He was thinking of Ohno, who went through a period where he stopped playing with the rest of them when he entered high school. He eventually gravitated back towards their group, but it had still hurt, the months when Ohno stopped contacting them._

_Sho’s hands took his, as he promised. “You’ll always be my friend. Always.”_

})i({

“A year isn’t very long,” Sho was telling Jun. “I can wait, if you can.”

They were grown up now, with grown-up responsibilities. Jun wondered how Sho’s children would take the news, if they really were thinking of what they were thinking of. Jun didn’t know how things would work, with the constant travelling his job required and Sho’s hectic schedule, and then of course there were the children to think of, again. A lot of things could happen in a year, too. But Sho said that he would wait, and that was all that Jun cared about at that moment.

“One year,” he repeated. “I’ve waited for six; what’s one more? But I have one condition.”

“Anything,” Sho said. Jun gave him a look, and he shifted. “What is it?”

“I don’t want either of us to wait for the sake of waiting. We’ll take each day as they come, and not worry too much about what will happen. A lot of things can happen in a year, so if you meet someone, or you change your mind… don’t worry about me.”

Sho looked like he couldn’t quite agree, but he eventually said, “you too, then.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Just so you know,” Jun said, “I’m pretty confident that I’ll still feel this way in a year’s time.”

“So am I,” Sho replied, and they looked at each other with determination. Realising that their promise was turning into a kind of challenge, they laughed, feeling as if a burden was being lifted from them. 

Jun lifted their entwined hands before them, towards the sky, thinking that the distant light of the stars were all the feelings he could not contain within him, echoes from all the years that had gone by, and that the racing of their pulses were all that he needed to know that he was alive.

“Maybe we’re both right,” he said. “The treasure is the light that makes the stars shine and the seas glitter, but the heart could only choose to see the light if it knows love.”

He lowered their hands in embarrassment when Sho laughed, and was about to defend himself when he saw Sho’s amused expression twinkling up at him, head slightly tilted and inviting. He forgot about the stars and the sea and treasure, and he forgot about Europe and his work and Sho’s divorce and the children, as he moved closer so that their lips would meet, and long-ago promises were kept.

_I’ll try my best not to break your love, if you promise not to break mine._


End file.
